But portraying Willy Loman, the delusional subject of Arthur Miller’s Pulitzer-winning “Death of a Salesman” ? We’re talking comparing a pillow fight with second-graders to spending a week at San Quentin.

“It’s like physical training building up to opening night,” Lowe said. “By the end of ever night, focus and everything else is out the window.”

It’s Lowe’s first stab at the iconic role and one he presents four weekends starting Feb. 23.

“It’s a great play. The script is so beautifully written, the story is perfectly told,” Lowe said. “You’ll never find another play like it. You can look. But you never will.”

It’s the first time in the community theater’s nine years the two have been the one-two punch on stage as well as behind-the-scenes.

“It’s a heavy-duty show. Not at all fluff,” Loew said. “Jeff and I try to do productions that appeal to everybody. This is for a mature audience member who is really a ‘theater-goer.’”

There is, Loew added grinning, “a lot of similarities with Jeff and I and the characters we play.”

Loew is excited to play the salesman’s devoted wife.

“Linda dotes on her children and her husband and the play does take place in the ’40s when women were housewives,” Loew said, adding that her character “puts up with his surliness and ill-temper because she truly loves him.”

With Lowe the lead actor, directing duties falls on veteran local actor Kenn Stevens. The two have been working on the characters and scenes for six months.

“Kenn is a brilliant guy. He has a real insight into the characters,” Lowe said.

Stevens sees his role “as collaborator, really, which is what it always comes down to.”

“Kenn would come over and do scene work and coach Jeff, discussing their ideas of how they see the production,” Loew said. “Kenn will say, ‘Oh yeah, that works’ or ‘No, that doesn’t work.’ That’s why you need a director with eyes to watch it and make sure you’re on track with a performance.”

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Loew said he say whether he preferred to direct or act in a Bay Area Stage offering.

“It’s apples and oranges,” he said. “This is a real challenge.”

The play, Lowe continued, “is about real people in real situations and the problems they face. This isn’t ‘The Love Boat.’”

Sons Biff and Happy Loman are played by Patrick Broncato and Maldon Longren, respectively.

Biff, according to sparksnotes.com, “represents Willy’s vulnerable, poetic, tragic side. He cannot ignore his instincts, which tell him to abandon Willy’s paralyzing dreams and move out West to work with his hands. He ultimately fails to reconcile his life with Willy’s expectations of him.”

Happy, as the younger son, “has lived in Biff’s shadow all of his life,” according to the drama web site, “but he compensates by nurturing his relentless sex drive and professional ambition. Happy represents Willy’s sense of self-importance, ambition, and blind servitude to societal expectations.”

The father, said Lowe, “wants his boys to be something and he can see that that’s not really going to happen.”

Biff “is the only realistic one,” Loew said. “He’s a loser, but he knows he is and accepts it. He says ‘We’re all fake’ and he’s tired of all that is fake. That’s why they have conflicts.”

Though Bay Area Stage leans toward presenting plays for three weekends, the nature of this beast qualified for a bonus weekend, Lowe said.

“The amount of work that goes into this ... we wanted to do it four weekends,” she said.

Following the heavy drama, Bay Area Stage presents Neil Simon’s “You Ought to Be In Pictures” and, if all works out, “Young Frankenstein, The Musical.”